GENETIC INHERITANCE ANALYSIS OF WHEAT SPIKE RELATED TRAITS IN WHEAT SEGREGATING POPULATION

An increase in food grain production is needed to feed the ever-increasing population, which is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), one of the most important world food crops, is thought to play a major role in ensuring world food security. Wheat yield is a complex trait and manipulating wheat spike attributes may lead towards improve yield plant-1 by increasing the spike length, selection for long awns and increasing the number of spikelets in the spike with supernumerary spikelets. This study was designed to investigate wheat F2 segregating population, developed from two parents with contrasting spike architecture, for genetic inheritance and variation in several spike related traits such as awn status, supernumerary spikelet (SS) phenotype, awn length and spike length. Wheat F2 population comprising of 78 plants was developed by crossing landrace-91 bearing awnless but one terminal scur and non-SS spike with SS-spike bearing long awns. Chi-squared tests were used to determine the goodness of-fit of observed data with expected segregation ratios for genetic inheritance analysis of spike related traits. Statistix v.8.0 was used to calculate LSD values, means while MS Excel was used for graphical presentation of data. Genetic inheritance analysis of the F2 population for awn status and SS-phenotype revealed that both awn development and SS-phenotype segregated in 3:1 ratio, following simple single dominant gene inheritance. Considerable variations between parents and F2 progenies for awn length and spike length were observed with 107-2-F2 being having the maximum awn length of 11 cm and spike length 22 cm. 107-2-F2 line with maximum awn length, spike length and SS-phenotype was advanced to further generation for stable inheritance of the said traits and to further manipulate the line in enhancing yield/plant.